


i remember hating all the pieces of me that wanted a kiss upon my blushing cheek

by intertwiningwords



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Bi Cody, Bi Noel, Bisexuality, Friendship, Gay Panic, Gen, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, RPF, TMG Tour, bi panic, idk where kelsey and aleeana are im so sorry i just didnt know where to put them in but i love them, more like, this isnt shippy just wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 01:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningwords/pseuds/intertwiningwords
Summary: a question from a fan makes cody start to question some things.





	i remember hating all the pieces of me that wanted a kiss upon my blushing cheek

**Author's Note:**

> i literally can't believe i took time out of my life to write this, i am SO sorry.
> 
> some of this is partially based on my tmg show!! 
> 
> also, other tmg writers, noel knows about us so watch out*
> 
> if for some reason, cody and noel are reading this, i'm begging you not to be too mean to me
> 
> ok cool, anyway, enjoy!!
> 
> *if anyone wants to roast me for writing rpf i get it but cody and noel have never expressed any discomfort towards it so unless they directly ask people to stop i'm gonna live my life uwu

Touring was _ way _ more complicated than Cody had been expecting.

He was endlessly thankful for their support team, for everything they’d done. He and Noel had hit so many roadblocks and obstacles along the way, ones that he was sure they wouldn’t know how to solve with ease, so having a group of awesome people around helped lessen the stress.

Besides coming down with the flu mid-tour, things had been going quite smoothly.

So, with his luck, perhaps he should have seen this coming.

“We booked this room months ago,” Cody argued with the dude at the front desk. He felt almost guilty for being an unsatisfied customer; the kid was clearly nineteen at most, and looked like he was far too stoned to be on desk duty.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the kid replied, voice wavering. “There might have been, um, some kind of mix-up with the booking, or, um—”

Cody had stopped listening by that point.

The issue? The only available room had one queen bed.

“I don’t mind sleeping on the couch or something,” Noel said with a shrug, but he was clearly annoyed with the circumstances as well.

“Dude, I’m not gonna make you sleep on the couch,” Cody replied. “It’s a queen, it’s not like we’re gonna be forced to cuddle and shit.”

Noel chuckled at that. “I mean, I guess. This is really the level of friendship we’re at now, huh? Sharin’ beds like girls at a sleepover?”

Cody laughed. “I guess so.”

They dropped off their things to the room, the lone bed in the middle of the room taunting them as they took turns getting ready for the show that night in the bathroom mirror, charging their phones, and mentally going through the motions of their jokes before heading out to the bus.

 

***

 

The meet and greet was great, full of super sweet and funny people, and the show went awesome. The Q&A was by far the funniest part though, getting the audience involved leading to some great improv as well as a chance to interact with the people who had gotten them on that stage in the first place.

Cody called on a girl off the left, able to see her brightly-colored hair even in the darkness of the venue.

“If you guys had to go gay for any celebrity, who would it be?” she asked, having to raise her voice for them to hear her question properly.

The crowd rippled with laughs, and someone from the back took their chance to shout “sugar gay!” as Cody hummed in thought.

“Shawn Mendes,” he said after a second of consideration.

That earned some cheers, and a few more scattered calls of  _ “sugar gay!” _ from the obvious That’s Cringe enthusiasts in the crowd.

“Noel, what about you?”

“Myself,” Noel replied, grinning cockily at his own clever answer.

“You’re not a celebrity though,” Cody shot back.

“We all know the answer is Cody!” a girl yelled, earning some more cheering and laughter.

“Oh, so you’re the one writing all that fanfiction then, huh?” Noel clapped back quickly.

Cody laughed along with the fans, running a hand through his hair.

Previously, he had made a comment about Shawn Mendes, so his answer being so quick wasn’t weird, but he suddenly felt insecure about how fast and shamelessly he’d answered, while Noel seemed genuinely stumped.

He’d seen the indirects on Twitter and Tumblr of people shipping him and Noel, and especially people theorizing about his own sexuality. Cody had always been quite confident in his heterosexuality, but he had certainly encountered the awkward confession of finding a man attractive, only to be met with confusion and even slight disgust from his alpha-male college friends. Where was the line between admiration and actual attraction?

Bisexuality was never something Cody had been against for other people, but never considered the label for himself. He’d only dated girls, only kissed and fucked girls, only felt confident crushing on girls.

And, yeah, the Shawn Mendes comment had been a joke, but was it fucked up of him to actually find the singer hot? Like, who didn’t?

But judging how long it took Noel to think of an answer (Jeff Bezos, in case you were wondering), and how even that answer was clearly given with a considerate amount of sarcasm, it made him insecure about his own identity.

And then the questions kept coming, and it was no time to have an existential crisis.

After the show, they went out to eat with their crew, enjoying a night on the town.

Perhaps Cody enjoyed it too much, knocking back drinks to clear his head of his previous worries, forgetting the situation that awaited him back at the hotel.

 

***

 

Standing in the fluorescent lights of the elevator, he felt dizzy.

Leaning against the wall with a small groan, he pressed his forehead against the cool mirrored wall, hoping to dull the ache that was already settling in his skull, a foreshadowing of the hangover he’d have tomorrow.

“You good, man?” Noel asked.

“I drank way too much,” Cody replied, as if that wasn’t obvious already. “My head is killing me.”

To his surprise, Noel reached out and wrapped an arm around his shoulders as if to steady him, although he’d been fully supported by the wall.

“Eh, you’ll sleep it off. This is nothin’ compared to how much I’ve seen you drink,” he said.

When the elevator stopped, Noel kept his arm around Cody’s shoulders, leading him back to the hotel like a lost and wandering puppy.

Guilt nipped at his mind as he relished in the feeling of Noel’s arm around him. 

They had never been the most affectionate of friends, Noel mentioning on several occasions that he wasn’t much of a hugger, or a toucher in general.

Cody sometimes found himself the opposite, but learned to control himself around Noel, opting for fist bumps and high fives rather than hugs.

However, being together almost twenty-four hours a day, usually on a cramped tour bus, had brought the two men closer, literally as much as figuratively.

It started small: Not bothering to apologize when they bumped knees, shoulders, elbows. A ruffle of hair, an elbow to the ribs, a playful punch to the arm.

The first time Noel had grabbed his hand for dramatic effect to a bit, Cody’s face had gone comedically red.

“Sorry, was that too  _ sugar gay  _ of me?” Noel asked, eyebrows raised, a grin stretched across his face.

“What do you mean?”

“Your face is all red. I didn’t mean to embarrass you with my profession of love for you, dude,” Noel teased.

“Oh! No, no worries. I think it’s just warm in here,” Cody replied with a shrug.

Noel seemed to have bought that excuse and they moved on.

Cody was not so sure that in this frame of mind, he’d be able to come up with such an excuse. However, his face was already flushed with drunkenness, so hopefully, Noel wouldn’t question it.

They stumbled into the hotel room, flicking on the light and crashing onto the bed, Noel’s laughter filling the room until the two of them could hardly fit.

“Damn, what got into you tonight, dude?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Cody mumbled.

“C’mon, let me help you get into your pajamas so you can sleep this off.”

“No, no, I can do it m’self…Shit, okay, help me.”

Noel shook his head fondly, going over to Cody’s suitcase and pulling out a t-shirt and pajama pants.

“Jeans, off, let’s go.”

Cody couldn’t help but giggle at how that sentence would sound to any eavesdropper, fiddling with his fly and wiggling his hips to dislodge his pants, kicking them off with a bit of struggle.

Noel had to help him pull off his shirt, fingers grasping for the hem and brushing Cody’s bare skin, making him squirm.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to tickle you.”

Cody hummed in response, a wordless sort of  _ “don’t worry about it” _ , his eyes fluttering shut lazily as Noel fought with his sweater.

“C’mon, at least give me a little help here,” Noel muttered. “Arms up.”

He did as he was told, letting his shirt be pulled off and leaving him in only his underwear, something Noel had seen before but never so up-close and intimately. Cody felt suddenly self-conscious, crossing his arms over his chest.

Noel handed him his clothes. “Think you can get ‘em on yourself?”

Cody nodded.

“Good, ‘cause I’ve had to piss since we left the bar. I’ll be right back if you need help.”

A small laugh, and then Cody was at war with his own pajamas, limbs not quite listening to what he wanted them to do, pulling his t-shirt over his head (backward, by the way), and managing to get his sweatpants halfway up his thighs before he flopped back against the mattress with a groan.

Noel came back from the bathroom, having apparently changed in the meantime as well, one of their own merch hoodies falling over his skinny frame.

He laughed at the sight of his friend sprawled across the bed, half-dressed. “Need some help there?”

Cody nodded pitifully, and Noel helped him get his clothes on all the way and properly that time.

“There we go. You good now?”   
“Thanks,” Cody mumbled with a nod.

“Need anything else?”

He shook his head.

“Alright, let’s go to bed then. If you puke on me in my sleep, this tour will be fuckin’ over, got it?”

Cody laughed. “Got it.”

“Good.”

The two of them got into their queen-sized bed, the white hotel sheets stiff and foreign. Distance was kept, the middle of the bed empty except for the occasional hand or foot in their attempts to get comfortable.

“Night,” Cody whispered.

“Goodnight.”

 

***

 

Thankfully, Cody did not puke or piss himself in the middle of the night, a miracle that he could truly thank the forces of the universe for.

However, his morning was far from shame or panic free.

He woke up feeling very warm, and his head was resting on something solid, something slowly rising and falling—

Oh fuck.

Somewhere in the night, the two of them had moved closer until Cody’s head had wound up on Noel’s chest, and Noel’s arms were wrapped around his waist.

His immediate instinct was to sit up and pretend it had never happened, but Noel was a light sleeper and there was no way he could get out of this cuddled-up position without waking him and having to explain that he’d woken up just as confused as to why they were all snuggled up like a cute couple.

Or, he could wait for Noel to wake up, fake being asleep, and let Noel be the confused one, but then what if he immediately placed the blame on Cody and pushed him away in disgust?

It was a pretty shitty situation to be in, especially with such a wicked hangover and a full bladder.

Just his fucking luck, right?

If he got up in one quick, swift motion (which made his head pound simply thinking about it), maybe he could escape to the bathroom before Noel fully woke up, leaving no questions to be answered.

Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.

He sat up quickly, scrambling off the bed and making a beeline for the bathroom before Noel even began to stir.

There was nothing better than the relief of being able to pee after all the alcohol he’d consumed last night, but escaping that awkward situation was a close second.

Noel never brought up the suspicious and sudden loss of warmth when Cody left, and Cody never mentioned it either.

Hopefully, they would just forget it.

 

***

 

“I have a question for Cody,” a girl who looked no older than sixteen said from the crowd. She was proudly brandishing a juul in her hand.

Noel feigned offense, turning to Cody expectantly.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“A lot of people online have been saying that you have chaotic bisexual energy. I was wondering if you get offended when people assume your sexuality or if you just think it’s funny?”

There was that word again.

Bisexual.

“I mean, I don’t really get offended by what you guys say,” he replied, hoping he hadn’t paused too long to think. “I get called old and unfunny all the time, and those are meaner than people just assuming who I wanna fuck.”

The Q&A continued quite normally after that, much to his relief.

They were on their way to the bus when Noel spoke up.

“So, that question about your sexuality was kinda wack,” he said, hands tucked into his pockets.

“Yeah, but we’ve had weirder,” Cody replied, trying to ignore how his heart skipped a beat.

“That’s true. It seemed like it made you uncomfortable though.”

“Did it?”

“I mean, to me it did. You played it off well for the crowd though.”

“I guess a little bit,” he shrugged. “Like, it just really isn’t their business.”

“Yeah, I feel that.”

“I mean, if I knew if I wasn’t straight I would be saying something about it. I turn everything else in my life into a joke. Like, either I’m straight or I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t see why they have to ask.”

Noel didn’t say anything, only watched as Cody ranted.

“And I mean, shouldn’t I get to question that on my own? Why do people need to poke their noses into everything? I don’t fucking know what I am, and I don’t owe anyone an answer.”

His brain screamed at him to shut up, but he just kept talking.

“I don’t need people to decide how I feel for me. I don’t care if people think I’m gay or straight or bi or whatever, but they don’t get to know the answer until I do.”

“That makes sense,” Noel finally said. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“I didn’t either until just recently. I didn’t want to say anything and...I don’t know, freak you out?”

“You think I’d freak out over that?”

“I mean, I don’t know! I freaked myself out thinking it.”

Noel’s eyes softened in a way Cody rarely ever saw. “Cody, I’m with you no matter what, man. Also, you’re kind of my like whole fuckin’ career, so it’s not like I’d have a choice.”

Cody chuckled softly, looking at his shoes.

“I’m kidding. You know we’re cool, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

 

***

 

“I’m bi.”

“What?”

“I’m bisexual,” Cody said.

They were sitting on the tour bus beside each other in silence when Cody spoke, and the confession had been sitting on the tip of his tongue all day, choosing to spill at the most random moment of opportunity.

“Oh. Cool, cool,” Noel said, looking up from the video he’d been editing. “Me too.”

“Thanks, man, I—Wait, what?”

“I said me too,” Noel replied.

“And you didn’t tell me this while I was having a crisis because…?”

Noel shrugged. “I just didn’t really think about it. I kind of figured that you already knew.”

“No, I had no idea actually.”

He thought back to all the times he thought Noel was the perfect heterosexual macho-man, and almost laughed. How stereotypical of him to assume, huh?

“So, did we just come out to each other?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, cool.”

And Noel went back to editing his video, and Cody went back to watching Instagram stories on his phone, small smiles curled on both their faces.

So, the technicalities of touring were  _ not _ the only complicated thing about it, but Cody wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this, thanks so much for reading!!
> 
> kudos/comments are more than appreciated!!


End file.
